Times bosses Ose OUT
Socialist Press1980 1980-09-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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they can go to day centres, staffed by trained workers that get a reasonable return for the care and attention they provide.
Ealing council thinks different.
115 day care workers, members of NALGO, employed by Ealing have been involved in negotiations with the employer since January 1979.
The negotiations are about increasing the scandalously low level of wages (around £4,000 pa. gross for most workers) and also for improving the service that is provided.
As a result of the management fobbing off negotiators with talk of "national negotiations" the Ealing workers have been forced to take industrial action in furtherance of their claim.
The. council administration claimed to be in support of the workers claim but as soon as the action started their real position became evident.
Ealing NALGO is blacking all new client admissions, refusing to work with agency staff, and refusing to send in administrative returns to the Town Hall. Staff are also sticking to strict staff/client ratios and refusing to cover for staff sickness or leave.
This action has already resulted in approximately 150 clients being excluded from day care centres in the borough.
The employers' response to this has been to witch-hunt the workers for causing hardship to the needy. Local papers have carried front page stories about clients adversely affected by UNION DUES Elthorne Park Adult_Training Centre for the mentally handicapped.
NALGO have already held two lobbies of the Town Hall which were well supported both by members and clients of the centres concerned.
Very little investigation is required to show that it is the trade unionists rather than the management that are actually concerned about the service being provided.
The employers seem prepared to let the dispute carry on indefinitely but the union is seeking permission from the National Emergency Committee to ballot its membership for an all-out strike should Ealing Council fail to make an offer by 15 September.
Ealing NALGO members are to be supported in this action at a time when the council is trying to intimidate their workforce with redundancies.
In particular they should demand the support of Labour councillors who so far have gone along with a quaint old custom of "the council speaking with one voice" in discussions with employees. This means that because the Labourites are in a minority custom dictates that they do not publicly criticise the way the Tories are maltreating their employees.
It is not by gentlemanly debate with the Tory axe-men that living and working conditions are going to be defended but by determined industrial action. learnt.
The campaign platiorm "What we stand for" calls on "the trade unions to declare their refusal to co-operate with the Local Authority in any attempt to interfere with any such action in the future"
The platform goes on to say "we support any industrial action taken by trade unionists in defence of nursery services"
The campaign must also be continued with the Labour Party where it has already contributed to the growing isolation of the right-wing councillors.
Divided
A significant section of the Coventry Labour Party supported the occupation and many Labour Party members were directly involved in it. A number of the ten rebel councillors expelled from the Labour group for voting against school meals price increases have also been involved.
The Labour Party is being divided between those who actually want to fight the Tories and those who do not.
Issues such as Wheatley Street pose the question of how to fight the cuts and the Labour Party should take up the methods of direct action to confront the government and those in the Council who implement Tory policies.
Further information about the Wheatley Street campaign can be obtained from Coventry Nursery Campaign (Wheatley Street) 37 Beaconsfield Road, Coventry.
RUM. BUSINESS. THESE STRIKES IN POLAND: I THOUGHT TED GIEREK HAD THINGS TAPED.
TUC WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE WEL: LET'S ?'ºC' IS THERE DEMANDS - FUR NO Str: i.TERFERENCE IN THE UNIONS - AND THE ) RIGHT TO STRIKE WHAT DO WE SAY?
Times journalists returned to work last week having shaken the management, Lord Thomson and themselves to their foundations.
The NUJ members were not quite certain why they were on strike or how it happened or what it was like when they got there.
The settlement 27% over 18 months is no better than 18% over 12 months which the chapel rejected.
But if the journalists cannot claim to have won-indeed their strike demand was some abstract concept of moral indignation-the management has certainly lost.
of Dugal Nisbet-Smith, managing director of Thomson Newspapers, said the board had come "within a millimetre of closure"
The blow to management is not over revenue. Their battle with the print unions has left them in need of allies and the WE SHOULD GO AHEAD WITH OUR VISIT...
journalists are a key section of the petty bourgeoisie they wanted to win over.
Yet not only did a minority of all journalists' including editorial executives declare themselves willing to work on the paper, but also the NUJ members who struck were shown-on management's own admission -that it was the NGA support which stopped a scab paper being produced.
This explains the hysterical editorial from editor Rees-Mogg which greeted the return of the Times. He declared inter alia: "The Thomson family, for reasons which are simply those of national interest, have put tens of millions of pounds into The Times" and "A journalist, though he may make a judgement of circumstances is either a Times man first or an NUJ man (!) first." • The economic crisis can drive the petty bourgeoisie either way. The Times management find to their dismay that their banner is deserted.
... AND GIVE HIM SOME ADVICE ON GETTING THEM BACK TO WORK!
O'FISHALL, THAT WOULD LEGITIMISE E REGIME. I THINK WE SHOULD UPPORT THE STRIKES...
TELL THE WORKERS WE SUPPORT THEM ALL THE WAY ON THOSE DEMANDS, AND THE FIGHT FOR A CHANGE IN THE REGIME !
WHAT- AT THE TUC CONGRESS! refusing to give any direction or perspective to such a fight.
The proof of this lies in a growing groundswell of rank and file action among NALGO members, particularly the lower paid.
This movement was reflected inside the Special Group Meeting by some • unexpectedly militant motions being passed on other issues.
The most important of these was in response to the refusal of ACAS to award any pay increase to nursery nurses.
The Group Meeting instructed the convening of a special delegate meeting of nursery nurses to plan a campaign of action.
The central demand here is for comparability with teaching staff, and an important tactical of joint action committees with will be the establishment the other unions represented in nurseries..
Other sections demanding action on their special conditions include Education Welfare Officers, the staff of Adult Mental Health Training Centres, Special Schools staff and librarians.
What they have in common is that they are all at the sharp end of reductions in services, and are among the lowest paid of NALGO members.
It is an important development in NAIGO that these kinds of sections are learning the lessons of the social workers' action and ате correctly bringing their grievances into the mainstream of the union.
AND SEND A DELEGATION TO THATCHER ABOUT UNEMPLOYMENT BUT WON'T THAT LEGITIMISE HER REGIME?
NO YOU FOOL -NOT HERE, IN POLAND
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